Mr. Michael Ewing:

I thank Deputy Noel Coonan for his questions which were as wide-ranging as our presentation.

On the performance of local government, while I would not like to point the finger at any specific county council in a negative manner, the picture is very varied. Waterford County Council is doing considerable work in this area. Roscommon County Council has done much work in recent years of its own volition, rather than at my behest. It has been particularly active on the issue of energy, for example, on heating. While thinking at local government level is evolving and developing, it has a long way to go. To be honest, if I were to give an average mark for local authorities' record on environmental issues, it would be three out of ten. Much learning remains to be done, although the picture is not even. Dublin City Council, for example, has done much work on sustainability and has its own thinking process in the Natural Step programme which covers the carbon footprint and so on. The picture is varied between and within local authorities. The problem is probably that, other than in certain circumstances, corporate learning is not taking place and local authorities are not picking up and running with it. Individual leaders in particular local authorities are doing very good work, but the overall picture is not as good as it could be.

With regard to Food Harvest 2020 and feeding the world, there is a clear understanding the planet faces serious problems in the areas of food distribution and the ability of people to grow their own food. One of the major issues with Food Harvest 2020 is that it was not considered with great care before being brought into being. It was not subject to a proper environmental analysis and the strategy did not consider its possible effects on climate change and so on. The document is a mixed bag as it holds out great potential in some areas and has the potential to do harm in others. This has not been properly examined, although an analysis is being carried out. We are engaging with this analysis to ascertain if Food Harvest 2020 will impact on the environment and if we can make changes in areas where it will impact on the environment. We hope the Minister will roll back some of the damaging parts of the strategy.

On ash dieback, this is a policy issue about which Mr. Lohan is probably better informed than I am. The issue is that we were importing diseased stock, which should never have happened. For a long time, the environmental pillar has pointed out that the nursery sector offers great employment potential. We continue to import large quantities of nursery stock from the Netherlands and other countries for use in infrastructural projects such as roads. The tendering process for such contracts is arranged in such a way that it is impossible for native nursery owners to engage with it. They would have to invest large sums on spec and in advance because obviously one must grow trees long in advance, yet they may not secure the contract. Nurseries elsewhere in Europe are able to do this because they are much larger. The issue of ash dieback raises many questions, including in respect of the importation of nursery stock in the horticulture and forestry sectors.

Given that farms occupy some 60% of the land surface of the country, farmers must be custodians of the environment. As Deputy Noel Coonan noted, some farmers are cowboys, while others are good. Some of the moves made in recent years are positive. We would like farmers to be encouraged and enabled to engage with local development organisations in the area of anaerobic digestion. The potential of anaerobic digestion in energy production is significant, yet the Government's handling of the issue has been very poor. As a result, very little has been done in this area. I will hand over to Ms Ó Siochrú as she has a particular interest in anaerobic digestion.